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New
Mail Server Comes Online The old mail server experienced an unexpected outage last night and it was decided that we should take advantage of this downtime by pushing forward a previously planned upgrade to a more powerful and efficient mail server. Mail services experienced a second outage in the wake of this change lasting from approximately 12:00 PM until 1:15 PM. Customers using Netscape Navigator for mail also experienced trouble collecting their mail for a period today. This problem was corrected at 2:30 PM. One of the features of this new mail server is mail quotas designed to protect customers from the dangers of mailboxes that grow too large to be checked. Aside from the toll that exceptionally large mailboxes place on shared resources, some mailboxes can grow large enough that the only option left to the account holder is deletion of the mailbox in its entirety. Please read the following information carefully as it will explain the details of these quotas and set your mind at ease with regard to the implications for you. A quota is essentially a limit on the amount of mail -- based on cumulative size, not quantity -- that a mailbox can hold. The new mail server has two types of quotas in place -- a "soft" quota and a "hard," or absolute quota. The soft quota has been set at 6MB. 6MB is a lot of mail, and relatively few mailboxes ever grow to this size. To put this in context, Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and the Complete Tragedies of Shakespeare in text format add up to just under 6MB! Executable files and pictures do take up more space, however, so if you regularly receive such attachments in email you will want to be sure to check your email regularly. As a safeguard, your mailbox will not immediately begin refusing mail when it reaches 6MB. Once a mailbox grows beyond 6MB it begins working towards the hard quota. The hard quota is 7 days above 6MB or 12MB, whichever comes first. When a mailbox reaches the hard quota, it will not grow larger until it has been reduced below 6MB. Mail sent to a mailbox which has hit the hard quota will bounce back to the recipient with a "mailbox is full" error message. Our primary concern in instituting these quotas is to preserve shared resources for all of our customers and to protect the integrity of your mailbox. Accordingly, we have set these quotas as high as is safely possible. Currently, there is no way for a customer to check the size of his or her mailbox. If you do not generally receive pictures or executable files in your email you probably don't have anything to worry about. Remember the estimate given above regarding just how much text makes up 6MB! If you are concerned about the size of your mailbox there's one sure fire way to set your mind at ease -- download your mail and you'll be back to zero! Notice will be sent out on a daily basis to any accounts that are over 6MB. If you don't receive a notice (and very few people will) you have nothing to worry about. If you do receive a notice, you will have time to take corrective action before your mailbox begins refusing mail. One of the most frequent causes of excessively large mailboxes are email clients that are set to "leave mail on server." If you have been checking your mail regularly and still receive a notice, it is quite possible that the program you use to check your mail is configured to "leave mail on server." This is something that our technical support team can easily help you fix and the "float zone" between the soft and hard quotas will give you plenty of time to do so. Finally we'd like to thank all of you for your patience while the new mail server was being readied for service. We're confident that you will all be pleased with the performance of the new, more powerful server!
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